'Tis the season for defending your charitable donations.
Days after Mark Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan announced plans to give 99 percent of their Facebook shares to a new philanthropic initiative, the Facebook CEO clarified how the $45 billion will be dispersed.
"Our initial focus areas are personalized learning, curing disease, connecting people, and building strong communities," he wrote in a post. "We've already made many investments over the past five years in these areas—education, science, health, Internet access and inclusion."
But not everyone is convinced by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, questioning its intent and generosity, and wondering if its LLC structure is an attempt to avoid taxes.
"[W]e receive no tax benefit from transferring our shares to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, but we gain flexibility to execute our mission more effectively," the social media guru said in defense.
"In fact, if we transferred our shares to a traditional foundation, then we would have received an immediate tax benefit, but by using an LLC we do not," Zuckerberg added. "And just like everyone else, we will pay capital gains taxes when our shares are sold by the LLC."
Plus, the "for profit" structure gives the Chan-Zuckerbergs—named 2013's Most Charitable Americans—more room to pursue their own humanitarian objectives without having to answer to shareholders.
Zuckerberg five years ago joined Bill Gates and Warren Buffet in pledging at least half of his wealth to charity via those two execs' Giving Pledge.
Fellow tech titan Tim Cook in March said he plans to give away his estimated $785 million fortune to charity—after paying for his 10-year-old nephew's college education.